Ross Higashi

Ross is a first-year doctoral student in the Learning Sciences and Policy program at the University of Pittsburgh. His current research focus is on the interaction of Badges with student and teacher motivation in formal and informal learning environments.

Ross worked 10 years as a robotics education specialist at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Academy, where he wrote, produced, and tested K-12 robotics curriculum, programming software, and learning games. He has also facilitated teacher training and professional development programs at the Robotics Academy since 2007. He has a B.S. in Logic and Computation from Carnegie Mellon University, where he also studied computer science and Human-Computer Interaction. He is also interested in games-based learning and has been involved in the development of badged learning systems of learning since early 2012, when he and Carnegie Mellon University co-PI Robin Shoop were selected as the recipients of a Digital Media and Learning Competition grant from the MacArthur Foundation.